An Alternative Correct Answer to the Cognitive Reflection Test

Abstract

The Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) measures one’s tendency to engage in reflective deliberate System 2 thinking. The CRT consists of three mathematical tasks, which are designed to generate an intuitive wrong answer (Frederick, 2005). It requires cognitive reflection to override this intuitive answer (which is typically considered first) and come up with the correct answer. The CRT has quickly reached wide popularity and within 16 years has been cited by over 4,800 publications according to Google Scholar (∼2,000 citations in Scopus). Studies which applied the CRT focused for instance on thinking biases (Stanovich and West, 2008), time and risk preferences (Oechssler et al., 2009), fluency (Alter et al., 2007), performance on heuristics-and-biases tasks (Toplak et al., 2011), and decision-making tasks (Campitelli and Labollita, 2010). High scores on the CRT correlate positively with numeracy, actively open-minded thinking and working memory and negatively with paranormal beliefs, denominator neglect and belief bias in syllogistic reasoning tasks (Toplak et al., 2011; Baron et al., 2015; Sirota and Juanchich, 2018). The original test also inspired the development of other tests of cognitive reflection, based on the same principle of “tricky” items, which evoke an intuitive wrong answer, either numerical or verbal (e.g., Toplak et al., 2014; Thomson and Oppenheimer, 2016).